GAYLETTER

Recently I read a book by one of my absolute favorite people on the planet, Ian Svenonius (musician, writer, cult hero, actor, comedian and pseudo-politician). I mentioned him in my interview with 2Pretty. The book is titled The Psychic Soviet, it’s an anthology of 19 essays that explore and discuss everything from politics to real estate, from Seinfeld to Hitler…but check this out — all of these cultural structures are viewed through the vehicle of rock ‘n’ roll. That’s right, this book views the world in its entirety through the lens of North America’s greatest global cultural contribution…did you think it was capitalism?

The particular essay that I would like to shed light on today is titled Camp Exploitation.

Now — many people know that there is a school of thought that projects the idea that white people really shouldn’t have stolen blues from black culture (same thing could be said for jazz) and turned it into rock ‘n’ roll. Svenonius did point out that most of the people who “bleat for the crucifixion of the “racist” rip-off artists” go to hyper-liberal schools like Wesleyan or Vassar for example. So it’s relatively fair to say that rock ‘n’ roll, as we know it, was generated by Blaxploitation.

“Punk, though, didn’t come from nowhere fully formed. Rather it was lifted directly from another exoticized sector: “gay” or “queer” culture.”

The New York Dolls are hailed as one the crucial bands in the development of the punk rock sound and attitude, as is Suicide, as is Patti Smith and of course we can’t forget The Sex Pistols or The Ramones. The New York Dolls were drag queens with guitars, Suicide could be boiled down as symbolic gestures of the top and the bottom concept (Alan Vega obviously being the flamboyant bottom, while Martin Rev plays the role of the straight faced, and in control, top). Patti Smith, aka the queen of the universe, really pushed that butch look too. The Sex Pistols were adorned in the historically gay leather look while The Ramones sung about their experiences as gay prostitutes in their song 53rd and 3rd.

“Homosexuality — though creeping into mainstream consciousness — was still very marginalized, so its denizens had the allure and spiritual power of the oppressed, but the connections to make an impact. John Waters and Paul Morrissey ruled the film scene with their provocations, each more vulgar than the last. Warhol, Jasper Johns, Robert Indiana, Ray Johnson, Rauschenberg, and later Mapplethorpe had conquered static and “high” art with the gay “pop art” movement which celebrated trash culture and kitsch. Mark-conscious stars Mick Jagger, Lou Reed, David Bowie and Marc Bolan attempted to pass as gay or at least bisexual. Like, the Jew in Europe or the Irishman in England, the gay artist was an established outsider, reviled and envied as exempt from the bourgeois morality.”

Punk in its birth-state was all about being rude, outlandish, crude, sarcastic, loud, cheap and vulgar — that’s camp man. Punk in its later form, being hardcore, essentially ditched the campy-ness for something far gayer; a room full of sweat soaked shirtless men climbing all over each other while thrusting and jerking in a dark room…

“Does this revelation regarding punk’s appropriation of gay culture mean that straight punks should pay recompense to those living founders of their movement; the John Waters and the Paul Morrisseys, who pioneered camp garishness, shock and vulgarity? Or should they stop playing their music altogether? Are they allowed to play punk rock if they engage in just some same-sex sex? Or is an outright conversion necessary? Angry students of Wesleyan, Hampshire, and Evergreen Colleges are holding a conference to determine the answer.”

You can buy his book featuring this essay and learn more here — which I sincerely hope you do. Ian (who I believe is heterosexual) has many fascinating things to say and I doubt I’ve captured the whole argument in this short post — I just thought it was an interesting idea to contemplate…